Nationwide SNAP Violation Lawyers

Coon Rapids Snap Violation Lawyers

If you’re a retailer who accepts EBT at your retail store, then it’s possible have received a letter from the USDA. This notice is probably a SNAP violation notice, which is alleging you have violated the SNAP program. The government will include proof to the SNAP violation notice, which will have transactions that happened at your store that the government is saying is in violation of one or more groups of violations.

After you get a SNAP violation letter, you must contact our law firm. Remember, you have only ten days to respond to the letter. If you choose to ignore, the USDA will suspend your grocery store’s ability to accept EBT payments.

About The Program

The SNAP program helps families with funds to buy food each month. These benefits are distributed with an EBT card. The funds on this card aren’t for general use, and they cannot be used for fraudulent cash back services. The EBT cards took the place of food stamps in the 1990’s and the card is issued by each state individually which the SNAP participant lives. The program is operated on a national level by the federal government.

This program and the benefits that come with it are governed by the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. The USDA FNS agency enforces the regulations and runs the program.

What’s a SNAP Violation

Snap violations happen if and when a store is in violation of the rules below.

The grocery store took part inthe trafficking of SNAP benefits. Examples of this is fraudulently accepting benefits, or stealing the benefits.

Your grocery store accepted SNAP funds in exchange for nonfood items like alcohol, tobacco, or other goods.

Your store submitted incorrect info on the store’s application to accept EBT benefits.

Your grocery store redeemed more EBT food stamps than actual food sales at the same time.

The employees of the store have taken SNAP benefits from someone who isn’t allowed to use them.

How to defend your store against a SNAP violation

Spodek Law Group has immense experience managing SNAP violation letters. Our law firm can handle your SNAP Violation appeal in all phases of a SNAP Violation action.

The charging letter is the first step taken by the USDA to take away your EBT license. The letter can come with no warning and can appear at any time. The SNAP violation letter will have allegations in it, but most letters will outline serious allegations, have evidence attached proving the violations. Your response to the SNAP violation letter is due within 10 days. After you hire our law firm, we take into their hands all of the communicationswith the USDA and for compiling all the necessary evidence, and drafting a response to the USDA.

After reviewing the store’s answer to the violation letter, the USDA might still decide that your store has violated the rules. If this happens, they’ll will 100% issue a second letter which outlines the governments decision to suspend or disqualify the grocery store based on the alleged violations. Like before, you have ten days to protest this decision. If you don’t, then you’ll be stuck with the USDA decision. After you hire our law firm, we’ll file the necessary paperwork to notify the government we are going to appeal their decision. We’ll gather necessary evidence, and we will draft draft the necessary appeals briefs which contains all of the case law, evidence, etc. which is critical to fix the outcome.

If the USDA refuses to change the binding decision, in the Administrative Review, our lawyers will file a Judicial review at the local Federal District Court. The Judicial Appeal is like a normal case, where you’ll have to do standard processes like discovery, file motions, and have a trial. We can handle these cases in all 50 states.

SNAP Violations

As a grocery store retailer, there are many laws have to obey in order to accept EBT. In most cases, many grocery store owners have no problems adhering to them. However, USDA’s SNAP program can be tricky. SNAP handles the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card, and has limitations. For example, SNAP recipients cant get electronic goods. As a retailer, if you violate the laws, you should expect getting a SNAP violation letter. Snap violation penalties can result in severe and business crushing penalties. If you conduct a serious SNAP violation, then you might end up with a temporary or permanent disqualification. In many situations, owners of grocery stores didn’t know the violations are even occurring. Often, unethical employees are misusing the SNAP EBT program. If you’re accused of a SNAP violation to discuss your case with a SNAP violation lawyer in order to ensure sure you don’t have your benefits revoked.

When a SNAP violation letter is presented to your retail store, you have only ten days to respond to the claims. Failure to respond to the violations will permanently crush your store. In addition, the USDA will make a verdict even if you choose not to respond to the allegations. Without legal experience, you cannot defend your store. Retaining a SNAP violation lawyer gives you a fighting change. Our lawyers can challenge the findings of the USDA and appeal any decision. The penalties imposed can be huge – to the tune of ten’s of thousands of dollars. The USDA on purpose does huge fines to curb violations. The USDA will look to see if you have a store compliance policy in place. It has to be in writing at the store and in effect at the time the violations were filed.

The retailer also has to be able to prove the compliance policy was in existence before the allegations, and was not drafted after the violation letter. The USDA will also look in order to see if the grocery store owners benefited from the violations, or if the business owners were aware of the fraud. Any involvement of the management can lead to disqualification.

It’s highly recommended any store that gets a allegation letter speak to with a SNAP violation attorney. Failure can result in negative consequences. The USDA is required by Congress to issue a disqualification for a period of up to 5 years. This can result in huge losses which are hard to recover from.